On July 9th, 2020, RSI co-hosted a webinar with the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion on the deprivation on nationality as a side-event to the 2020 UN Virtual Counterterrorism Week. Titled “Citizenship stripping, expulsion and statelessness: have counterterrorism measures gone too far?” the webinar was aimed at shedding light on this measure and analysing it’s standing in law.
The past few decades has seen a resurgence of deprivation of nationality marked by the expansion of nationality codes to include broad nationality security grounds for deprivation and/or the increasingly broad interpretation of existing provisions such as deprivation resulting from fraudulent naturalization. Despite the innumerable detrimental effects and rights violations tied to the practice, it is clear that it resembles less and less the exceptional tool it is intended to be. The webinar focused on bringing to the fore the legal standards that govern nationality and its deprivation in international law, human rights law, refugee law, and domestic legal frameworks. Together these form strong safeguards, which states should be respecting, even in the context of safeguarding national security. These standards are outlined in the ‘Principles in Nationality Deprivation’ developed by ISI and OSJI. Additionally, the role of the UN in monitoring and regulating this measure was addressed as well as issues such as root causes of the securitization of citizenship and the side-lining of judiciaries in favour of the executive.
The webinar was moderated by RSI’s director Yasmine Ahmed, the speakers were:
• Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; and
• Edward J. Flynn, Senior Human Rights Officer, UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate; and
• Laura Bingham, Senior Managing Legal Officer for Equality and Inclusion, Open Society Justice Initiative; and
• Amal De Chickera, Co-Director, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.
Further resources discussed in the webinar:
- the ‘Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure’, available in English, French, Spanish and Russian.
- the ‘Draft Commentary’ to the Principles on Deprivation of Nationality.
- OSJI’s report on deprivation practices in the US: ‘Unmaking Americans. Insecure Citizenship in the United States’.
- the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Combatting Terrorism’s intervention in Shamima Begum’s case.
- the opinion piece written by Laura Van Waas, director of ISI, to coincide with the webinar.
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